


color of your grave

by Welcoming_Disaster



Category: Marvel, Marvel Contest of Champions (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Civil Warrior, Confusing perspective, Dark, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mindfuck, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28424049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welcoming_Disaster/pseuds/Welcoming_Disaster
Summary: Get over yourself, Rogers. Look at me, Cap. We’ll be out of this, Steve, before we know it. Are you new here, Winghead? You new here? Are you new here? Winghead, are you new here? Why aren’t you answering me, Steve? What’s going on, Cap? What’s going on, Rogers?
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	color of your grave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> Written for a prompt that asked for "Civil Warrior Angst + Pining." Short and not plot heavy. Watch out if mindfuck-y stuff gets you. Violence gets graphic at the beginning. Hope you like this!

Here’s how it happens: Captain America hits Iron Man hard in the chest with the shield. Off balance, Iron Man fires, point blank, at Captain America’s face. Captain America’s world fills with pain. Captain America does not stop fighting. Captain America does not reconsider. Captain America, driven by anger and adrenaline and the overwhelming desire to hurt, to make someone else feel, for once, the way that he is feeling, brings the shield down once, twice, three times, and breaks Iron Man’s neck.

No words pass between them. If they do, Captain America does not hear them. Captain America had not heard the crack. Captain America’s cowl is melted into the flesh of his face. The smooth, perfectly round globe of Captain America’s eyeball is exposed. The air smells like burned hair and cooking meat. Captain America had not heard the crack. Captain America thinks Iron Man will wake up in the hospital.

The pain, which had driven his anger, is now driving him to the point of lightheadedness and nausea. He thinks it’s odd that Iron Man is not getting up. Someone catches him by the elbow and pulls him away. Many someones pull him away. Captain America does not resist. Captain America does not kill civilians. Captain America had not killed, except that he had, during the war. Except that he had, by inaction. Except that, now, Iron Man’s cooling body is lying by his feet.

It’s possible that at this point in time, Iron Man is alive. It is a certainty that he will not be in four minutes and forty five seconds, when someone finally gets the suit off.

Captain America does not look back at the body, alive or dead. Captain America had not heard the crack. Captain America is still angry.

Captain America is told about what happened. Captain America does not believe it. Captain America expects that Iron Man will turn up; Iron Man does not turn up.

But that’s not right. That’s not how it happens at all.

It happens like this: Steve’s hands, on the shield, are slick with blood (but that’s not right — where did the blood come from? Whose blood can it possibly be? Steve’s not hurt, not yet, and Tony’s blood is, naturally enough, contained by the suit. It’s not broken yet. It shouldn’t be leaking.) and his hold is shaky, slippery, and he hits Tony and Tony’s off balance and Steve wants him to be off balance, and that’s when the suit cracks, and Steve wants it to crack, wants to feel like he’s cracking Tony himself, because what the fuck, how _dare_ he, and then—

And then the shot comes, and Steve’s world fills with pain, and Steve doesn’t stop, can’t stop, brings the shield down, faceplate cracks, brings the shield down, heart’s pounding his ears, dear god, he can’t see, can’t make out anything but the outline of it, and Tony—

Voice tinny and horrified, some reaction to how far this has gone, some reaction to the awful picture Steve’s face must make, Tony says, “finish it,” and Steve hits him, again, and Steve hears the crack, and Steve expects Tony to wake up in the hospital, and Steve lets people take him away, and Steve doesn’t look back, Steve looks back, Steve doesn’t see anything, there’s blood in Steve’s eyes, and Steve knows what he’s done, of course he knows.

But that’s not right, either.

Here’s what happens; they’re never friends. Steve Rogers lies to Tony Stark because of what Tony Stark can do for him. When he finds out, he’s angry. He shoots Steve Rogers in the face, which is fine. Steve Rogers snaps his neck. This is not fine.

Cue moral crises. Cue a resolution to do better. Cue the retirement of the Captain America mantle. Cue the death penalty. Cue the games.

After this:

Captain America pulls the armor of a dead man, the corpse skeletal inside, because the dead man was buried in the armor. Steve pulls the armor off the dead man then and there, his corpse not yet cooled. The armor is given to Steve Rogers by the The Collector. Rogers uses Stark’s diagrams to rebuild the armor, a version of the armor, slightly off, too bulky, and he wears it proudly, feeling like he’s learned something, preserved something important.

He wears it guiltily, his insides twisting uncomfortably at the thought of what he’d done, whose skin he’d stolen.

He wears it like a weapon, and nothing more. It’s useful. He needs to be useful.

He wears it with a strange, bittersweet feeling in his gut, wears it the same way that people keep ghosts around the house, the same way people leave flowers on a grave.

There are hundreds of Tony Stark. Thousands.

The contest ensures he learns that. He meets them. He talks with them. He fights them. He sees their flaws and insecurities, the openings they leave on the arena, openings he sometimes doesn’t take. He leaves them openings they sometimes do.

Exposure therapy. After his fifty-sixth time tackling Tony Stark to the ground and cracking open his suit, he doesn’t feel like it’s traumatizing anymore. Maybe he should have taken them up when they’d offered him psychiatrists. He wasn’t raised that way, though, wasn’t raised to vocalize his feelings, to feel catharsis in talking. Doing does just fine. Pour one out for wonders of the human psyche. Don’t pour one out.

None of them are right. They’re too tall. They’re too short. They laugh wrong. Their eyes are the wrong color. Their eyes are the right color, but wrinkle wrongly at the corners. They wear ties Tony would never wear. They wear ties Tony would wear with the wrong socks. Their Iron Men are too sleek. Their Iron Men are too bulky. They say his name wrong. They don’t say his name. They say his name just right, and for a moment, he can pretend that he deserves it.

Cap. Steve. Winghead. Rogers. Get over yourself, Rogers. Look at me, Cap. We’ll be out of this, Steve, before we know it. Are you new here, Winghead? You new here? Are you new here? Winghead, are you new here? Why aren’t you answering me, Steve? What’s going on, Cap? What’s going on, Rogers?

He snaps a wrist. It gives a little crunch under his fingers. The man he loves stops asking.

He loves all of them. He’s accepted this long ago, with the dull kind of acceptance he feels for a lot of things these days; the scars on his face, the loss of his name, his home, the fact that he can never go back.

All he can do is protect them.

All he can do is stop this from happening again.

Stop Rogers. Stop Cap. Stop Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> the moral of this story is that i think civil warrior should have some dope facial scars


End file.
